A former female firefighter has sued Colorado River Fire Rescue claiming male firefighters installed pornography on her computer, repeatedly told her women shouldn’t be allowed in the department and assaulted her when she complained.

Jennifer Taylor has sued the fire department that protects New Castle, Silt and Rifle, claiming that when she filed formal complaints those responsible received minimal or no punishment while she was retaliated against.

Taylor’s Grand Junction attorney Nicholas Mayle filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver seeking damages for injuries, attorneys fees and punitive damages. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued Taylor a right to sue in December.

The fire department, which has 100 employees, hired Taylor on Jan. 1, 2007, as a firefighter and paramedic.

On May 13, 2016, Taylor left her computer logged on when she attended a training session. When she returned to her desk she found that the computer screen background had been changed to a photograph of two men having sex.

She shouted in shock and was humiliated and embarrassed, the lawsuit says.

Taylor wrote a formal complaint to Chief Rob Jones. A determination was made that employees Ben Park, Jeff Clymer and Wyatt May had changed her computer background when she was gone.

All of them admitted their involvement, the lawsuit says. Of the three, only Clymer was sent home for 12 hours over the incident, the lawsuit says. None of the three were suspended or demoted, it says.

“Fire Chief (Rob) Jones told Ms. Taylor that the incident was Ms. Taylor’s fault and that Ms. Taylor needed to watch how she behaved around the male firefighters,” the lawsuit says.

In the days and weeks after the incident, her computer screen was changed multiple times to humiliate her. One of the pictures was of a unicorn defecating a rainbow. When she reported the incidents, her supervisors told her that it was “no big deal” and that she was to “let it go.”

The lawsuit says that Jeff Kaiser told another employee that Taylor, one of only two women who worked for the fire department, did not deserve to work for the department because she was a woman. When employee Cody Lister reported the incident to Battalion Chief Kevin Alvey, he did not take any corrective action, the lawsuit says.

Kaiser made other comments directly to Taylor that she shouldn’t be allowed to work for the department because she is female, but nothing was done until she filed an EEOC complaint.

When Sierra Carroll, the department’s only other woman, was assigned to work in the same unit with Taylor, Lt. Randy Hill replied, “Great. The last thing we need around here is another (expletive) vagina.”

When Taylor reported the incident to Battalian Chief Tim Levin, no disciplinary or corrective action was taken until Taylor filed a complaint to the EEOC.

On another occasion, Jones didn’t allow Taylor to participate in confined space rescue training because she was a female and was not strong enough, the lawsuit says. No corrective action was taken, the lawsuit says.

When she applied for the position of lieutenant, Jones didn’t allow Taylor the same time allotted to male candidates and told her to wrap it up when she suggested the department needed gender diversity. Unlike the male applicants for the position, she was not placed on a promotion list for future consideration.

Jones also later told her she would not be permitted to take a qualifying test for an emergency management coordinator position, even though she was well qualified for the job, the lawsuit says. Jones mistakenly said she couldn’t apply because she was not an officer and didn’t have facility transport experience. But Taylor did. The comments indicated Jones hadn’t read her application, the lawsuit says.

On April 7, 2017, Park, one of the employees who placed pornography on Taylor’s computer, walked up to her and punched her during training. Lt. Joe Kronkowitz saw Park hit Taylor. But Kronkowitz did not reprimand or counsel Park and did not report the incident, the lawsuit says.

Taylor was injured in the assault. She reported the incident to Jones, who ordered her to see a doctor. The physician placed her on “light duty.” Although there was a significant amount of light duty she could have done, the fire department did not allow her to work. As a result she was forced to use about 144 hours of paid time off while she was on light duty, the lawsuit says.

Park, who put pornography on Taylor’s computer and hit Taylor, was not fired, the lawsuit says. He was suspended for 48 hours, it says.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.

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